Guilty! Shock horror "On a personal level, I'm as shocked and surprised as anyone else" says Tory blogger and former colleague, "Today's news from the court in Maidstone should shock me, but sadly it doesn't." Says Labour leader, who has in his short time as leader of the local council done little if anything, other than deals and given jobs to independents to keep his party in office.
Even the great dormant one from Ramsgate, appears to have been jerked out of a virtual coma, by the Sandy Ezekiel trail. Schadenfreude is evident, in much of the media coverage, for myself I stand by what I wrote last May, that I always found Ezekiel to be well mannered and able to separate political attacks from personal and that Sandy was council leader when much groundwork was done for Margate regeneration.
Still a can of worms has been knocked over, you've got to wonder, what else goes on here in Thanet, many years ago I heard a rumour that an earlier Tory crook on the council, whom it was later revealed specialised in reproduction bank notes, had bullied council staff into giving misleading references to a mortgage company.
Thanet council has rarely inspired confidence, as being either competent or efficient, unfortunately looking at the people well meaning as most of them are, its clear to me that there are a fair few chancers in both parties whose ambitions conflict with the public interest.
Not sure (see comments) whether local Tory leader will be making any statement, but if I were he I'd wish to condemn Sandy Ezekiel pronto, particularly given other notorious Conservatives from the past, Jonathan Aitken and Cyril Hoser associated with Thanet.
Not sure (see comments) whether local Tory leader will be making any statement, but if I were he I'd wish to condemn Sandy Ezekiel pronto, particularly given other notorious Conservatives from the past, Jonathan Aitken and Cyril Hoser associated with Thanet.
Tony, Bob Bayford made a statement on friday:
ReplyDelete"I am shocked and saddened that Sandy Ezekiel will start and 18 month jail sentence today. This is a personal tragedy for Sandy and his family but serves as a stark reminder that in public life, the people rightly expect the highest standards of behaviour."
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Deletehighest standards of behaviour, more like double standards? Gregory and Tomlinson come to mind..
Deletethe last post sounds like the outpourings of a certain person!
DeleteI did say i was not sure, still it missed me
ReplyDeleteTony you are as thick as shit, but I think you know that already
DeleteI got it from here (not sure if he's said more):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Tory-leader-Thanet-describes-Ezekiel-jailing/story-18289175-detail/story.html
Please keep to the subject Thank Yuo
ReplyDeleteMay I remind you Tony that he was leader of the council for the whole of Thanet and if you think "Sandy was council leader when much groundwork was done for Margate regeneration." then the rest of Thanet has been negleted. Even Margate itself apart from the old town with the KCC/Arts council paid for gallery is not looking that great. Dreamland has got nowhere in all that time. Go and take a look at Ramsgate Royal Sands, not even a temporary tidy up for the summer seasons, The EKO costly failure, time and money spend on China Gateway and only councillors seemed to benefited from this with a few jollies. I dont see that those great hopes of local employment, Thanet Earth and Manston airport have been a great success, Passenger services have given it a shot and left, owners have gone bust ofr lost millions.
ReplyDeleteWell said, 10.58, it is precisely this 'I'm all right Jack, screw everyone else' attitude that has destroyed this country.
DeleteI know there's some gullible folk who like to blame the foreigners, or the unemployed for our woes, but who seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the money-grabbing shysters that have wormed their way into positions of authority.
Until this corruption is tackled head on, by we the people, the deterioration will continue. Of course, we shall ourselves need to lose the selfish, uncaring attitude first.
What you spotted Kinnock, Mandelson and Blair as well then, Bill. Talk about get rich on the backs of their poor voters!
DeleteThe supposed new 40 jobs at Manston look to be from the KCC/Visit Kent £100k grant to Infratil. We're paying for jobs at an airport the owner is trying to sell! Worht remembering wiht KCC election in May.
DeleteRoger Latcford was thought to be the real power behind Sandy Ezekiel
ReplyDeleteNo full stop again, John, that is a real bad habit you have got. Mind you, I can remember a time when you were only too happy to brown nose to the Colonel.
Delete14:49 Haven't seen any evidence of that. Have you?
DeleteMr Clarke, you're so funny. Running - one might even say "trolling"- round all the local blogs trying to divert attention and discussion away from this local Tory scandal by naming lots of Labour politicians whom you don't like or who you believe have done wrong. Good to see that you have your friends - John Holyer and (out of the woodwork as usual when a Tory is on the ropes) Ren Wood - firmly in tow to help. I keep expecting to see Norah Batty rise from the swamp again too. You're articulate, yes, but also transparently predictable - and, like Holyer, prone to outbursts of rudeness and nastiness. Shame really...
ReplyDeleteTom tends to spring off a platform of implied assumption. IE That all is well and a blip, like the Ezekiel conviction, merely bucks the exemplary tory trend he would have the readership infer.
DeleteBut of course the trend for decades in Thanet tories is malignant. It is unresolved and Tom, with his ilk, cry foul when unresolved issues are tenaciously raised again and again. For example a man who served imprisonment for hate cartoons, depicting Auschwitz as a holiday camp for Jews, found a welcome in South Thanet tories.
"Who pulled your chain, Richard," might be the apt response for nowhere have I sought to defend the Ezekiel conviction. Indeed, as I have oft pointed out, I am not a member of the Conservative party and am generally appalled at the inadequacies of the political classes.
DeleteAll I have maintained is that the inadequacies, failures of effective leadership and criminal behaviour are not confined to one political party. Hence I decry the partisan baying of the left when some Tory bites the dust whilst not a word of criticism ever flows about their own sides limitations. They still even deny the last Labour government's part in the national debt.
Unlike you though, Richard, I do not make unsubstantiated claims against individuals spread all over the w.w.w. Who, for example, was the Tory who went to prison for Auschwitz cartoons?
My claims are not unsubstantiated Tom. The Judicial review file I submitted to Royal Courts of Justice was about 400 pages. This was stolen by persons unknown from the Registry of RCJ. I reported on this to the Senior Law Lord. And that may be a matter as yet unresolved.
DeleteThe member of South Thanet tory party who served time for Auswitz cartoons was Robert EDWARDS.
IN 1996 the allegedly scurrilous Searchlight magazine published a series of reports about alleged mercenaries being throughported at ramsgate on their provisioning route to carry out attacks on the Mandela regime. Some of Mr Edwards South Thanet tory cartoons were featured. Including one depicting Jonathan Aitken as a St George on a white charger.
As I understand it Mr Edwards membership of South Thanet tories may have been terminated and Searchlight wondered if they would face a libel action from Aitken. But as I understand it Aitken had signed an endorsement to a book by Edwards.
Mike Pearce's Gazette ran a report as far as I know having obtained answers from Mr Edwards and the two members of the extremist IRA supportive League of St George Group Ramsgate who were named in the Searchlight reports.
Mr Pearce Gazette confidently told the people of Thanet that Searchlight had been gullible for a good story.
Which made it a bit questionable later on IIRC when Mike Pearce published letters critical of Thanet economy from the alleged source of the story. The source not to be relied upon the alleged purveyor of good stories to the gullible. The chap who must have had no knowledge of Ramsgate and its harbour. Address of letter writer ? C.O Royal Temple Yacht Club.
You may recall the matter of porno cartoons being placed in Labour lady cllr mail circulation at TDC?
Did TDC ever get an answer who was the cartoonist ?
I don't recall which of the League of St george regular contributors to Mike Pearce Gazette letters page it was. But Mike published a letter that described Cllr Iris Johnson as the true pornography.
Iris was also subject of a hatemail campaign being investigated at the time by police.
In the information that has flowed since the 90s it emerges that a disaffected member of International Bodyguards Assn (I have long since copied his emails to HM coroner and Kent Police) realised that
Deletethe two paramilitary training organisations set up at Deal barracks (IBA and ILETA) between 75 and 82 had never registered at Companies House. So enterprising chap registered IBA in his own name.
Whereupon he received phone calls from "Clients". The one of interest calling itself "South Africa Scouts" (SAS inevitably yawn)who were a group apparently expecting some sort of paramilitary style training or equipping.
Sounding now rather like Searchlight were not as gullible for a story as Mike Pearce initially instructed Thanet to think ?
This was of course occurring at the time retd MI5 officer Ken Speakman of 6th Thanet Gun Range was murdered in 96.
It is admittedly a matter of speculation whether MI5 had contacted an old boy in 82. When Brigadier Mike Harvey, then a consultant for HM Customs, reported concerns to MI5 of unsuitable right wingers involved in unlawful military training at Deal Barracks. (Yes I have provided Police and HM Coroner copies of correspondence between the the then CO of Deal barracks and an RAF officer who was querying the security status of this Combat Training Team group.
It is speculation that MI5 would have asked one of their former officers to maintain a watching brief.
And MI5 would have passed the Brigadier's report to Kent Special Branch.
In fact a report of concern was made from a Suffolk USAF RAF base in 81 too.
The retd detective chief supt who headed the Speakman murder inquiry phoned me last year. He chose after I posted him various copies of correspondence, including between two bodyguard training companies in 96, to make some sort of report of concern to Kent Police Pro Standards/
For all I know this report may have been critical of me. But the fact remains the case was made that it is reasonable to suspect that elements of Thanet Police had withheld evidence from the murder inquiry.
The question arising is did elements of Thanet police withhold evidence also in the 90s from officers conducting fraud inquiry at TDC.
This the latest report on the founder of the unauthorized military groups established at Deal Barracks 75 to 82
DeleteThis is the expose' of the founder of the Deal paramilitary groups first exposed by Private Eye who had a chap called ECR active in Thanet
At the time Searchlight published in the 90s a disaffected member of those private military training groups realised that they had never registered at Companies House. So he upped and registered in his name. Whereupon he received phone calls from a client calling itself "South Africa Scouts" (Yes SAS yawn) who seemed to be expecting some sort of support for an enterprise they were planning.
I have long since sent that chaps evidence to police and, for various reasons, to Thanet HM Coroner.
But I would say that maybe Mike Pearce was a tad hasty in labelling the Searchlight report as being gullible for a good story/
Far be it for me to divert attention from anything, indeed, of far greater concern to me is the closure of Howe Barracks, loss of tours in Germany and stripping the Desert Rats of their tanks. Strangly enough I do not believe the named Labour politicians have done anything criminal, they have just done what many politicians do when getting to office, lined their own pockets.
ReplyDeleteWhat I object to is the suggestion that somehow one set of politicians are any less self serving than another. Most, I like to think, are not criminal, but out of touch with the people they are elected to serve and far too quick to enjoy the good life at our expense. If you want to naively believe that your chosen lot are all candidates for beautification, be my guest. Such is your democratic right.
Tom You are actually on the same page. In the early 1990s the US Defence Dept sued a number of UK manufacturers and recovered substantial amounts of money for unreliable equipment supplied to the US Armed Forces. Aerospace, helicopter gearboxes and the like.
ReplyDeleteThis legal action by USA did not just spring up. They had people in UK recruiting witnesses. And the deal was attractive. As I understand it they targetted test technicians in the companies and offered them USA residency, immunity and a percentage of recovered money.
The evidence was of management orchestrated falsification of factory quality control and test records.
There was no problem in the late 80s and early 90s in persuading ministers of the cases for companies falsifying test records. Even with substantiated reports. Because the ministers at MOD and DTI already knew it was going on. They have a problem how to remedy things whilst minimizing the threat of world markets cottoning on. They want to protect UK economic interests. Maybe there is a broader picture behind strange public interest decisions to block criminal offences being heard in court ?
Let us use a Thanet example to illustrate the absurdity of the general case. A generator manufacturer has BSI quality control accreditation. Feel assured Tom ? But in fact the accreditation does not extend to the factory component supply chain.
Let us suppose that the factory subs out electronic assembly. And that the subby then subs it out to homeworkers in Thanet's black economy.
Michael Child as an electronics engineer will suss that static handling reliability assurance is compromised.
This electronics is what will automatically start emergency generators at sites like hospitals and nuclear power plant where they supply the shut down and coolant systems to prevent criticality after emergency shut down.
Referring to Kent 1996 and a successful operation by MI5 Met and West Midlands Old Bill
It matters not in some senses whether the target sub stations were to be blown up (causing a six month power outage in London and South East and possibly wider) or whether it was a hoax aimed at provoking emergency shut down of the grid. Either way nuclear power plant would have engaged emergency shut down. Ooooh let's hope those Thanet black economy workers did a good job and that di electric strained generator electronics doesn't choose this moment to conk out. And nuclear power plant go critical. Because if that happens the Home Secretary will have to phone the Met Commissioner and Kent Chief constable etc. "Mmmmmm we need to evacuate London and South East for three centuries nuclear set aside"
But the Thanet manufacturer did not just suffer the general case problem. Saboteur. And that alleged saboteur had an associate. A gentleman arrested once for paramilitary activity in TA. Who went on to become a Thanet tory cllr.
So when allegedly scurrilous stories were published in Searchlight 1996. A story about a seedy cartoonist etc. What do you think, as a man interested in the security of the Realm, was the pertinent bit ?
That they had planned how to attack electrical infrastructure in the Mandela regime. An IRA supportive group of nazi oddballs dabbling in how to cause the shut down of electrical infrastructure.
Defence of the Realm is a bit more than making sure the Desert Rats have tanks.
But the broader picture, in public interest decisions about not prosecuting, may be ministers protecting UK economic interests whilst trying to institute regulatory remedy without court actions in the public domain.
Unreal, Richard, just what do you do for pleasure apart from reading obscure conspiracy theories. Tell me, has any one of your numerous reports to sundry authorities resulted in anyone being successfully prosecuted.
DeleteFurthermore, what has any of this got to do with my assertion that the public are generally ill served by the political parties and that no one party is free of those that abuse their office for personal gain.